It’s Not a Competition

Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 54; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37.

Jesus sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Some of you may have seen the article in the Washington Post this week.  The title was: “This pastor will sign a religious exemption for vaccines if you donate to his church.”  It seems this pastor decided to get involved in politics in order to fight Covid vaccines and mask requirements.  He’s now running for the Senate, challenging a very conservative Republican, who I guess isn’t conservative enough for him on freedom from vaccines and masks.  I saw him on the news this week, saying he had a message for the “former vice president” – I guess he means President Biden, although he didn’t want to call him that – “I challenge you to come here to [this state], because we will never comply here.”  Some real segregation-era vibes there.

And, of course, as the headline suggests, as a pastor he wants to help people claim a religious exemption from getting a vaccine that will keep them healthy and, from a Christian perspective perhaps more importantly, keep them from spreading Covid to kids and others who for medical reasons can’t get vaccinated and keep them from clogging up hospital beds that are needed by other people.  So he’s put together a form that a pastor can sign, and he says if your pastor won’t sign it, you can join his church online by making a small donation, and he’ll be happy to sign it for you.  Some real selling indulgences vibes there, if you ask me.

I saw all of this news about this pastor during the week, and I have to confess that I thought to myself:  You know, whatever my faults and failings are as a pastor, and I know they’re many – you all can probably name them better than me – I think I’m doing a better job than this guy.  Maybe that’s a low bar, but I think I’ve cleared it.

Yes, we are all set free in Christ.  But I think of how often Paul writes things like “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become servants of one another, for the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal. 5:13-14).  So yes, we are free in Christ, but we have not been set free to do to be a jerk to other people; we’ve been set free to give freely of ourselves in love for other people.  As Paul says, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” (Phil. 2:4). So when I see a pastor talking like this, I can’t help but think that my understanding of the gospel is better than his.

And – I actually went to his church’s web site and looked around a little, and while I don’t know this pastor and he doesn’t know me, I’ll wager that if asked he would say that since he’s married to a person of the opposite sex and I’m not, he would say that his understanding of the Bible is better than mine.  I think that’s wrong, I still think I’m right, and I’ll be happy to let Jesus be the judge of both of us.

And then I read today’s gospel passage:  “Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.”  

This is what happens when you take Jesus seriously:  we keep finding out that we’re doing it wrong.  Jesus asks his disciples what they are discussing as they travel “on the way,” Jesus asks us what we are doing as we travel “on the way,” and we’re ashamed to tell him that we’re arguing with each other about who’s the better disciple.

It’s not wrong to want to be a better disciple of Jesus.  It’s even natural to look to others who seem fairly obviously to be getting it wrong and be thankful that we seem a bit farther along on the way than some others might be.  The prophet Jeremiah does this all the time, including in our first reading today.  I can’t wait, Lord, when you show them that they’re wrong and I was right, I’ll be the happiest person alive.

And yet, as soon as Jesus asks the disciples what they were discussing while they were “on the way,” they fall silent.  Because, even though they still have a long way to go “on the way,” they have learned enough by now to know that this is not a competition.

We’re in a section of Mark’s gospel where the disciples are physically “on the way” with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem, but the disciples are shown as being very far from understanding what it means to be “on the way” with Jesus.  This is the second of six Sundays where we will take our gospel readings from this section of Mark, where Mark points out ways in which the disciples of Jesus, then and now, are not yet really following in the way of Jesus.  Last week, we saw Peter try to talk Jesus out of the cross.  Today, the disciples are arguing among themselves about which of them is the best.

And the reason this is a problem, Jesus sits down and instructs his disciples, is that the kingdom of God is not about what we do – not how much we serve, not how much we understand, not even how much we love.  The kingdom of God has come near to us because God has come near to us.  It’s about what God is doing, how God is making the world right, how God is calling us to change our ways and trust that God’s presence and reign are already here in our midst.  That’s what Jesus has been teaching and enacting from the very beginning, and yet his disciples – then and now – seem to think it’s something we have to do, something we have to live up to.  We think the kingdom of God is a place we need to get to, and some of us are closer than others; Jesus wants his disciples to know that the kingdom of God has already come to us now, while we’re still “on the way.”

Our reading today from the letter of James is trying to make this same point.  “Wherever there is envy and selfish ambition,” James writes, “there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.”  If people are being harmed by the actions of others, if there are disputes and conflicts, the ultimate cause is people who want something they think somebody else has.  The reason you do not have something, James says, is that you do not ask, or that you ask wrongly – you ask thinking only of what you want and not of what others want.  Resist this way of thinking, James says, and draw near to God – and you will discover that God is in fact near to you.

To get this point across to his disciples, Jesus in today’s gospel reading literally puts a child in the center of the circle where he is teaching.  Center the one who supposedly ought to be seen and not heard, focus on the one who does not yet have the things you wish to have.  Serve the one who is not capable of giving you anything in return.  Loving the one who can give you nothing in return except for love itself is like loving God – who offers love and mercy and forgiveness not in exchange for our works but in spite of them.

Now don’t misunderstand – I still think the pastor I read about in the news this week is wrong about vaccines and masks and a whole lot of other things too.  But when the judgment of God is revealed I think we will all discover that we’ve gotten a lot wrong – this pastor will, yes, but so will I, and so probably will you.  But the kingdom of God is not about what we do and whether what we do is better or worse than anybody else.  The kingdom of God is about what God is doing.  God works in our lives despite us – and even if I do understand the gospel better than some others, and I still think I do – even then, God accomplishes more in me despite my efforts than through them.

So today we are invited to lay aside all of our competitions, all of our comparing ourselves to others.  It’s when we welcome Jesus, not because he will prove us to be better than anybody else, not because he will see and reward our accomplishments, but when we welcome Jesus like we would a child, someone who is innocent of all the status games that we adults like to play with one another and (we think) with God.  That is when we truly become able to perceive how God is already working among us.  That is when we truly become able to be present to our neighbors in need and place their interests and needs above our own.  That is when we truly become free.